Presently, more and more consumers are interested in having high-speed communication links in their homes. Traditionally such high-speed connections are either obtained over cable networks, satellite or Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL). One advantage to such high-speed connections is the accessibility to large bandwidth. This bandwidth can be used to send multiple communications at the same time.
In the case of DSL, the large bandwidth can be used to provide a residence with multiple communication connections or lines. DSL is a modern technology that enables broadband digital data to be transmitted over twisted copper wire. There are varieties of DSL such as Asymmetrical DSL (ADSL).
ADSL, which in turn has varieties, has three distinctive properties: (1) it supports simultaneous voice and always-on data, (2) it allows line-powered baseband voice and additional voice lines, and (3) the data bandwidth is asymmetric—up to about 9 Mbps in the downstream direction and up to e.g., about 800 Kbps in the upstream direction based upon the variant of the ADSL.
In the ADSL bandwidth, the baseband voice is carried in the 0–4 Khz frequency range. Frequencies above that range are divided into 256 4 Khz channels, with a spectrum range from about 25 Khz to a little over 1 Mhz. In the illustrative ADSL embodiment described here, the upstream data is carried in the 25 Khz to about 280 Khz range and the downstream data is carried in the 280 Khz to 1.1 Mhz range. Derived voice channels are constructed within the 25 Khz to 1.1 Mhz frequency range of the high-speed data bandwidth. When in use, each derived voice channel (i.e., line) uses 80 Kbps of the broadband bandwidth, which decreases the bandwidth available for data.
An important aspect of maintaining these multiple high-speed connections is the ability to manage all of the connections through a single interface. Users do not want to have to necessarily access a particular connection to connect to a voice communication or receive email. Furthermore, if a particular connection is busy, the user may still want to receive incoming communications on its other open connections. While many management vehicles exist in traditional PSTN and IP environments, such solutions are not readily available for DSL connections.